Читать книгу The Complete Tamuli Trilogy: Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City - David Eddings - Страница 32

A large part of the fun came from the fact that her parents could not anticipate the Princess Danae’s early-morning visits. They were certainly not a daily occurrence, and there were times when a whole week would go by without one. This morning’s visit was, of course, the same as all the rest. Consistency is one of the more important divine attributes. The door banged open, and the princess, her black hair flying and her eyes filled with glee, dashed into the room and joined her parents in bed with a great, whooping leap. The leap was followed, as always, by a great deal of squirming and burrowing until Danae was firmly nestled between her parents.

She never paid these visits alone. Rollo had never really been a problem. Rollo was a well-mannered toy, anxious to please and almost never intrusive. Mmrr, on the other hand, could be a pest. She was quite fond of Sparhawk and she was a genius at burrowing. Having a sharp-clawed kitten climb up the side of one’s bare leg before one is fully awake is a startling experience. Sparhawk gritted his teeth and endured.

‘The birds are awake.’ Danae announced it almost accusingly.

‘I’m so happy for them,’ Sparhawk said, wincing as the kitten lurking beneath the covers began to rhythmically flex her claws in his hip.

‘You’re grumpy this morning, father.’

‘I was doing just fine until now. Please ask your cat not to use me for a pin-cushion.’

‘She does it because she loves you.’

‘That fills my heart. I’d still rather have her keep her claws to herself, though.’

‘Is he always like this in the morning, mother?’

‘Sometimes,’ Ehlana laughed, embracing the little girl. ‘I think it depends on what he had for supper.’

Mmrr began to purr. Adult cats purr with a certain decorous moderation. Kittens don’t. On this particular morning, Danae’s small cat sounded much like an approaching thunderstorm or a grist-mill with an off-centre wheel.

‘I give up,’ Sparhawk said. He threw back the covers, climbed out of bed and pulled on a robe. ‘There’s no sleeping with the three of you around,’ he accused them. ‘Coming, Rollo?’

His wife and daughter gave him a quick, startled glance then exchanged a worried look. Sparhawk scooped up Danae’s stuffed toy and ambled out of the room, holding it by one hind leg. He could hear Ehlana and Danae whispering as he left. He plumped the toy into a chair. ‘It’s absolutely impossible, Rollo, old boy,’ he said, making sure that his women-folk could hear him. ‘I don’t know how you can stand it.’

There was a profound silence from the bedroom.

‘I think you and I should go away for a while, my friend,’ Sparhawk went on. ‘They’re starting to treat us like pieces of furniture.’

Rollo didn’t say anything, but then Rollo seldom did.

Sephrenia, who was standing in the doorway, however, seemed a bit startled. ‘Aren’t you feeling well, Sparhawk?’

‘I’m fine, little mother. Why do you ask?’ He hadn’t really expected anyone to witness a performance intended primarily for his wife and daughter.

‘You do realise that you’re talking to a stuffed toy, don’t you?’

Sparhawk stared at Rollo in mock surprise. ‘Why, I believe you’re right, Sephrenia. How strange that I didn’t notice that. Maybe it has something to do with being rousted out of bed at the crack of dawn.’ No matter how hard he tried to put a good face on this, it wasn’t going to go very well.

‘What on earth are you talking about, Sparhawk?’

‘You see, Rollo?’ Sparhawk said, trying to rescue something. ‘They just don’t understand – any of them.’

‘Ah – Prince Sparhawk?’ It was Ehlana’s maid Alean. She had come into the room unnoticed, and her huge eyes were concerned. ‘Are you all right?’

Things were deteriorating all around Sparhawk. ‘It’s a long, long story, Alean,’ he sighed.

‘Have you seen the princess, my Lord?’ Alean was looking at him strangely.

‘She’s in bed with her mother.’ There was really not much left for him to salvage from the situation. ‘I’m going to the bath-house – if anybody cares.’ And he stalked from the room with the tatters of his dignity trailing along behind him.

Zalasta the Styric was an ascetic-looking man with white hair and a long, silvery beard. He had the angular, uncompleted-looking face of all Styric men, shaggy black eyebrows and a deep, rich voice. He was Sephrenia’s oldest friend, and was generally conceded to be the wisest and most powerful magician in Styricum. He wore a white, cowled robe and carried a staff, which may have been an affectation, since he was quite vigorous and did not need any aid when he walked. He spoke the Elenic language very well, although with a heavy Styric accent. They gathered that morning in Sephrenia’s interior garden to hear the details of what was really going on in Tamuli.

‘We can’t be entirely positive if they’re real or not,’ Zalasta was saying. ‘The sightings have been random and very fleeting.’

‘They’re definitely Trolls, though?’ Tynian asked him.

Zalasta nodded. ‘No other creature looks quite like a Troll.’

‘That’s God’s own truth,’ Ulath murmured. ‘The sightings could very well have been of real Trolls. Some time back they all just packed up and left Thalesia. Nobody ever thought to stop one to ask him why.’

‘There have also been sightings of Dawn-men,’ Zalasta reported.

‘What are they, learned one?’ Patriarch Emban asked him.

‘Man-like creatures from the beginning of time, your Grace. They’re a bit bigger than Trolls, but not as intelligent. They roam in packs, and they’re very savage.’

‘We’ve met them, friend Zalasta,’ Kring said shortly. ‘I lost many comrades that day.’

‘There may not be a connection,’ Zalasta continued. ‘The Trolls are contemporary creatures, but the Dawn-men definitely come from the past. Their species has been extinct for some fifty aeons. There have also been some unconfirmed reports of sightings of Cyrgai.’

‘You can mark that down as confirmed, Zalasta,’ Kalten told him. ‘They provided us with some entertainment one night last week.’

‘They were fearsome warriors,’ Zalasta said.

‘They might have impressed their contemporaries,’ Kalten disagreed, ‘but modern tactics and weapons and equipment are a bit beyond their capabilities. Catapults and the charge of armoured knights seemed to baffle them.’

‘Just exactly who are the Cyrgai, learned one?’ Vanion asked.

‘I gave you the scrolls, Vanion,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Didn’t you read them?’

‘I haven’t got that far yet. Styric’s a difficult language to read. Somebody should give some thought to simplifying your alphabet.’

‘Hold it,’ Sparhawk interrupted. He looked at Sephrenia. ‘I’ve never seen you read anything,’ he accused her. ‘You wouldn’t let Flute even touch a book.’

‘Not an Elene book, no.’

‘Then you can read?’

‘In Styric, yes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Because it wasn’t really any of your business, dear one.’

‘You lied!’ That shocked him for some reason.

‘No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. I can’t read Elene – largely because I don’t want to. It’s a graceless language, and your writings are ugly – like spiders’ webs.’

‘You deliberately led us to believe that you were too simple to learn how to read.’

‘That was sort of necessary, dear one. Pandion novices aren’t really very sophisticated, and you had to have something to feel superior about.’

‘Be nice,’ Vanion murmured.

‘I had to try to train a dozen generations of those great, clumsy louts, Vanion,’ she said with a certain asperity, ‘and I had to put up with their insufferable condescension in the process. Yes, Sparhawk, I can read, and I can count, and I can argue philosophy and even theology if I have to, and I am fully trained in logic.’

‘I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,’ he protested mildly, kissing her palms. ‘I’ve always believed you were a fairly nice lady –’ he kissed her palms again, ‘for a Styric, that is.’

She jerked her hands out of his grasp and then saw the grin on his face. ‘You’re impossible,’ she said, also suddenly smiling.

‘We were talking about the Cyrgai, I believe,’ Stragen said smoothly. ‘Just exactly who are they?’

‘They’re extinct, fortunately,’ Zalasta replied. ‘They were of a race that appears to have been unrelated to the other races of Daresia – neither Tamul nor Elene, and certainly not Styric. Some have suggested that they might be distantly related to the Valesians.’

‘I couldn’t accept that, learned one,’ Oscagne disagreed. ‘The Valesians don’t even have a government, and they have no concept of war. They’re the happiest people in the world. They could not in any way be related to the Cyrgai.’

‘Temperament is sometimes based on climate, your Excellency,’ Zalasta pointed out. ‘Valesia’s a paradise, and central Cynesga’s not nearly so nice. Anyway, the Cyrgai worshipped a hideous God named Cyrgon – and, like most primitive people do, they took their name from him. All peoples are egotistical, I suppose. We’re all convinced that our God is better than all the rest and that our race is superior. The Cyrgai took that to extremes. We can’t really probe the beliefs of an extinct people, but it appears that they even went so far as to believe that they were somehow of a different species from other humans. They also believed that all truth had been revealed to them by Cyrgon, so they strongly resisted new ideas. They carried the idea of a warrior society to absurd lengths, and they were obsessed with the concept of racial purity and strove for physical perfection. Deformed babies were taken out into the desert and left to die. Soldiers who received crippling injuries in battle were killed by their friends. Women who had too many female children were strangled. They built a city-state beside the Oasis of Cyrga in Central Cynesga and rigidly isolated themselves from other peoples and their ideas. The Cyrgai were terribly afraid of ideas. Theirs was perhaps the only culture in human history that idealised stupidity. They looked upon superior intelligence as a defect, and overly bright children were killed.’

‘Nice group,’ Talen murmured.

‘They conquered and enslaved their neighbours, of course – mostly desert nomads of indeterminate race – and there was a certain amount of interbreeding, soldiers being what they are.’

‘But that was perfectly all right, wasn’t it?’ Baroness Melidere added tartly. ‘Rape is always permitted, isn’t it?’

‘In this case it wasn’t, Baroness,’ Zalasta replied. ‘Any Cyrgai caught “fraternising” was killed on the spot.’

‘What a refreshing idea,’ she murmured.

‘So was the woman, of course. Despite all their best efforts, however, the Cyrgai did produce a number of offspring of mixed race. In their eyes, that was an abomination, and the half-breeds were killed whenever possible. In time, however, Cyrgon apparently had a change of heart. He saw a use for these half-breeds. They were given some training and became a part of the army. They were called “Cynesgans”, and in time they came to comprise that part of the army that did all of the dirty work and most of the dying. Cyrgon had a goal, you see – the usual goal of the militaristically inclined.’

‘World domination?’ Vanion suggested.

‘Precisely. The Cynesgans were encouraged to breed, and the Cyrgai used them to expand their frontiers. They soon controlled all of the desert and began pushing at the frontiers of their neighbours. That’s where we encountered them. The Cyrgai weren’t really prepared to come up against Styrics.’

‘I can imagine,’ Tynian laughed.

Zalasta smiled briefly. It was an indulgent sort of smile, faintly tinged with a certain condescension. ‘The priests of Cyrgon had certain limited gifts,’ the Styric went on, ‘but they were certainly no match for what they encountered.’ He sat tapping his fingertips together. ‘Perhaps when we examine it more closely, that’s our real secret,’ he mused. ‘Other peoples have only one God – or at the most, a small group of Gods. We have a thousand, who more or less get along with each other and agree in a general sort of way about what ought to be done. Anyway, the incursion of the Cyrgai into the lands of the Styrics proved to be disastrous for them. They lost virtually all of their Cynesgans and a major portion of their full-blooded Cyrgai. They retreated in absolute disorder, and the Younger Gods decided that they ought to be encouraged to stay at home after that. No one knows to this day which of the Younger Gods developed the idea, but it was positively brilliant in both its simplicity and its efficacy. A large eagle flew completely around Cynesga in a single day, and his shadow left an unseen mark on the ground. The mark means absolutely nothing to the Cynesgans or the Atans or Tamuls or Styrics or Elenes or even the Arjuni. It was terribly important to the Cyrgai, however, because after that day any Cyrgai who stepped over that line died instantly.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Kalten objected. ‘We encountered Cyrgai just to the west of here. How did they get across the line?’

‘They were from the past, Sir Kalten,’ Zalasta explained, spreading his hands. ‘The line didn’t exist for them, because the eagle had not yet made his flight when they marched north.’

Kalten scratched his head and sat frowning. ‘I’m not really all that good at logic,’ he confessed, ‘but isn’t there a hole in that somewhere?’

Bevier was also struggling with it. ‘I think I see how it works,’ he said a little dubiously, ‘but I’ll have to go over it a few times to be sure.’

‘Logic can’t answer all the questions, Sir Bevier,’ Emban advised. He hesitated. ‘You don’t have to tell Dolmant I said that, of course,’ he added.

‘It may be that the enchantment’s no longer in force,’ Sephrenia suggested to Zalasta. ‘There’s no real need for it, since the Cyrgai are extinct.’

‘And no way to prove it either,’ Ulath added, ‘one way or the other.’

Stragen suddenly laughed. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he said. ‘There might very well be this dreadful curse out there that nobody even knows about because the people it’s directed at all died out thousands of years ago. What finally happened to them, learned one?’ he asked Zalasta. ‘You said that they were extinct.’

‘Actually, Milord Stragen, they bred themselves out of existence.’

‘Isn’t that a contradiction?’ Tynian asked him.

‘Not really. The Cynesgans had been very nearly wiped out, but now they were of vital importance, since they were the only troops at Cyrgon’s disposal who could cross the frontiers. He directed the Cyrgai to concentrate on breeding up new armies of these formerly despised underlings. The Cyrgai were perfect soldiers who always obeyed orders to the letter. They devoted their attention to the Cynesgan women even to the exclusion of their own. By the time they realised their mistake, all the Cyrgai women were past child-bearing age. Legend had it that the last of the Cyrgai died about ten thousand years ago.’

‘That raises idiocy to an art-form, doesn’t it?’ Stragen observed.

Zalasta smiled a thin sort of smile. ‘At any rate, what used to be Cyrga is now Cynesga. It’s occupied by a defective, mongrel race that manages to survive only because it sits astride the major trade routes between the Tamuls of the east and the Elenes of the west. ‘The rest of the world looks upon these heirs of the invincible Cyrgai with the deepest contempt. They’re sneaky, cowardly, thieving and disgustingly servile – a fitting fate for the offspring of a race that once thought it was divinely destined to rule the world.’

‘History’s such a gloomy subject,’ Kalten sighed.

‘Cynesga’s not the only place where the past is returning to haunt us,’ Zalasta added.

‘We’ve noticed,’ Tynian replied. ‘The Elenes in western Astel are all convinced that Ayachin’s returned.’

‘Then you’ve heard of the one they call Sabre?’ Zalasta asked.

‘We ran across him a couple of times,’ Stragen laughed. ‘I don’t think he poses much of a threat. He’s an adolescent poseur.’

‘He satisfies the needs of the western Astels, though,’ Tynian added. ‘They’re not exactly what you’d call deep.’

‘I’ve encountered them,’ Zalasta said wryly. ‘Kimear of Daconia and Baron Parok, his spokesman, are a bit more serious, though. Kimear was one of those men on horseback who emerge from time to time in Elene societies. He subdued the other two Elene Kingdoms in western Astel and founded one of those empires of a thousand years that spring up from time to time and promptly fall apart when the founder dies. The hero in Edom is Incetes – a bronze-age fellow who actually managed to hand to Cyrgai their first defeat. The one who does his talking for him calls himself Rebal. That’s not his real name, of course. Political agitators usually go by assumed names. Ayachin, Kimear and Incetes appeal to the very simplest of Elene emotional responses – muscularity, primarily. I wouldn’t offend you for the world, my friends, but you Elenes seem to like to break things and burn down other people’s houses.’

‘It’s a racial flaw,’ Ulath conceded.

‘The Arjuni present us with slightly different problems,’ Zalasta continued. ‘They’re members of the Tamul race, and their deep-seated urges are a bit more sophisticated. Tamuls don’t want to rule the world, they just want to own it.’ He smiled briefly at Oscagne. ‘The Arjuni aren’t very attractive as representatives of the race, though. Their hero is the fellow who invented the slave-trade.’

Mirtai’s breath hissed sharply, and her hand went to her dagger.

‘Is there some problem, Atana?’ Oscagne asked her mildly.

‘I’ve had experience with the slave-traders of Arjuna, Oscagne,’ she replied shortly. ‘Someday I hope to have more, and I won’t be a child this time.’

Sparhawk realised that Mirtai had never told them the story of how she had become a slave.

‘This Arjuni hero’s of a somewhat more recent vintage than the others,’ Zalasta continued. ‘He was of the twelfth century. His name was Sheguan.’

‘We’ve heard of him,’ Engessa said bleakly. ‘His slavers used to raid the training camps of Atan children. We’ve more or less persuaded the Arjuni not to do that any more.’

‘That sounds ominous,’ Baroness Melidere said.

‘It was an absolute disaster, Baroness,’ Oscagne told her. ‘Some Arjuni slavers made a raid into Atan in the seventeenth century, and an imperial administrator got carried away by an excess of righteous indignation. He authorised the Atans to mount a punitive expedition into Arjuna.’

‘Our people still sing songs about it,’ Engessa said in an almost dreamy fashion.

‘Bad?’ Emban asked Oscagne.

‘Unbelievable,’ Oscagne replied. ‘The silly ass who authorised the expedition didn’t realise that when you command the Atans to do something, you have to specifically prohibit certain measures. The fool simply turned them loose. They actually hanged the King of Arjuna himself and then chased all his subjects into the southern jungles. It took us nearly two hundred years to coax the Arjuni down out of the trees. The economic upheaval was a disaster for the entire continent.’

‘These events are somewhat more recent,’ Zalasta noted. ‘The Arjuni have always been slavers, and Sheguan was only one of several operating in northern Arjuna. He was an organiser more than anything. He established the markets in Cynesga and codified the bribes that protect the slave-routes. The peculiar thing we face in Arjuna is that the spokesman’s more important than the hero. His name is Scarpa, and he’s a brilliant and dangerous man.’

‘What about Tamul itself?’ Emban asked, ‘and Atan?’

‘We both seem to be immune to the disease, your Grace,’ Oscagne replied. ‘It’s probably because Tamuls are too egotistical for hero worship and because the Atans of antiquity were all so much shorter than their descendants that modern Atans overlook them.’ He smiled rather slyly at Engessa. ‘The rest of the world’s breathlessly awaiting the day when the first Atan tops ten feet. I think that’s the ultimate goal of their selective breeding campaign.’ He looked at Zalasta. ‘Your information’s far more explicit than ours, learned one,’ he complimented the Styric. ‘The best efforts of the empire have unearthed only the sketchiest of details about these people.’

‘I have different resources at my disposal, Excellency,’ Zalasta replied. ‘These figures from antiquity, however, would hardly be of any real concern. The Atans could quite easily deal with any purely military insurrection, but this isn’t a totally military situation. Someone’s been winnowing through the darker aspects of human imagination and spinning the horrors of folk-lore out of thin air. There are vampires and werewolves, ghouls, Ogres and once even a thirty-foot giant. The officials shrug these sightings off as superstitious nonsense, but the common people of Tamuli are in a state of abject terror. We can’t be certain of the reality of any of these things, but when you mingle monsters with Trolls, Dawn-men and Cyrgai, you have total demoralisation. Then, to push the whole thing over the edge, the forces of nature have been harnessed as well. There have been titanic thunderstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and even isolated eclipses. The common people of Tamuli have become so fearful that they flee from rabbits and flocks of sparrows. There’s no real focus to these incidents. They simply occur at random, and since there’s no real plan behind them, there’s no way to predict when and where they’ll occur. That’s what we’re up against, my friends – a continent-wide campaign of terror – part reality, part illusion, part genuine magic. If it isn’t countered – and very, very soon – the people will go mad with fear. The empire will collapse, and the terror will reign supreme.’

‘And what was the bad news you had for us, Zalasta?’ Vanion asked him.

Zalasta smiled briefly. ‘You are droll, Lord Vanion,’ he said. ‘You may be able to gather more information this afternoon, my friends,’ he told them all. ‘You’ve been invited to attend the session of the Thousand. Your visit here is quite significant from a political point of view, and – although the council seldom agrees about anything – there’s a strong undercurrent of opinion that we may have a common cause with you in this matter.’ He paused, then sighed. ‘I think you should be prepared for a certain amount of antagonism,’ he cautioned. ‘There’s a reactionary faction in the council that begins to foam at the mouth whenever someone even mentions the word “Elene”. I’m sure they’ll try to provoke you.’

‘Something’s happening that I don’t understand, Sparhawk,’ Danae murmured quietly a bit later. Sparhawk had retired to one corner of Sephrenia’s little garden with one of Vanion’s Styric scrolls and had been trying to puzzle out the Styric alphabet. Danae had found him there and had climbed up into his lap.

‘I thought you were all-wise,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be one of your characteristics?’

‘Stop that. Something’s terribly wrong here.’

‘Why don’t you talk with Zalasta about it? He’s one of your worshippers, isn’t he?’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘I thought you and he and Sephrenia grew up together in the same village.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘I just assumed that the villagers all worshipped you. It’s sort of logical that you’d choose to be born in a village of your own adherents.’

‘You don’t understand Styrics at all, do you? That’s the most tedious idea I’ve ever heard of – a whole village of people who all worship the same God? How boring.’

‘Elenes do it.’

‘Elenes eat pigs too.’

‘What have you got against pigs?’

She shuddered.

‘Who does Zalasta worship if he’s not one of your adherents?’

‘He hasn’t chosen to tell us, and it’s terribly impolite to ask.’

‘How did he get to be a member of the Thousand then? I thought you had to be a high priest to qualify for membership.’

‘He isn’t a member. He doesn’t want to be. He advises them.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I really shouldn’t say this, Sparhawk, but don’t expect exalted wisdom from the council. High priests are devout, but that doesn’t require wisdom. Some of the Thousand are frighteningly stupid.’

‘Can you get any kind of clue about which God might be at the bottom of all these disturbances?’

‘No. Whoever it is doesn’t want any of the rest of us to know his identity, and there are ways we can conceal ourselves. About all I can say is that he’s not Styric. Pay very close attention at the meeting this afternoon, Sparhawk. My temperament’s Styric, and there may be things I’d overlook just because I’m so used to them.’

‘What do you want me to look for?’

‘I don’t know. Use your rudimentary intuition. Look for false notes, lapses, any kind of clue hinting at the fact that someone’s not entirely what he seems to be.’

‘Do you suspect that there might be some member of the Thousand working for the other side?’

‘I didn’t say that. I just said that there’s something wrong. I’m getting another of those premonitions like the one I had at Kotyk’s house. Something’s not what it’s supposed to be here, and I can’t for the life of me tell what it is. Try to find out what it is, Sparhawk. We really need to know.’

The council of the Thousand met in a stately marble building at the very centre of Sarsos. It was an imposing, even intimidating building that shouldered its way upward arrogantly. Like all public buildings, it was totally devoid of any warmth or humanity. It had wide, echoing marble corridors and huge bronze doors designed to make people feel tiny and insignificant.

The actual meetings took place in a large, semicircular hall with tier upon tier of marble benches stairstepping up the sides. There were ten of those tiers, naturally, and the seats on each tier were evenly spaced. It was all very logical. Architects are usually logical, since their buildings tend to collapse if they are not.

At Sephrenia’s suggestion, Sparhawk and the other Elenes wore simple white robes to avoid those unpleasant associations in the minds of Styrics when they are confronted by armoured Elenes. The knights, however, wore chain-mail and swords under their robes.

The chamber was about half-full, since at any given time a part of the council was off doing other things. The members of the Thousand sat or strolled about talking quietly with each other. Some moved purposefully among their colleagues, talking earnestly. Others laughed and joked. Not a few were sleeping.

Zalasta led them to the front of the chamber where chairs had been placed for them in a kind of semicircle.

‘I have to take my seat,’ Sephrenia told them quietly. ‘Please don’t take immediate action if someone insults you. There’s several thousand years of resentment built up in this chamber, and some of it’s bound to spill over.’ She crossed the chamber to sit on one of the marble benches.

Zalasta stepped to the centre of the room and stood silently, making no attempt to call the assemblage to order. The traditional courtesies were obscure here. Gradually, the talking tapered off, and the Council members took their seats. ‘If it please the Council,’ Zalasta said in Styric, ‘we are honoured today by the presence of important guests.’

‘It certainly doesn’t please me,’ one member retorted. ‘These “guests” appear to be Elenes for the most part, and I’m not all that interested in hob-nobbing with pig-eaters.’

‘This promises to be moderately unpleasant,’ Stragen murmured. ‘Our Styric cousins seem to be as capable of boorishness as we are.’

Zalasta ignored the ill-mannered speaker and continued. ‘Sarsos is subject to the Tamul Empire,’ he reminded them, ‘and we benefit enormously from that relationship.’

‘And the Tamuls make sure we pay for those benefits,’ another member called.

Zalasta ignored that as well. ‘I’m sure you’ll all join with me in welcoming First Secretary Oscagne, the Chief of the Imperial Foreign Service.’

‘I don’t know what makes you so sure about that, Zalasta,’ someone shouted with a raucous laugh.

Oscagne rose to his feet. ‘I’m overwhelmed by this demonstration of affection,’ he said dryly in perfect Styric.

There were cat-calls from the tiers of seats. The cat-calls died quite suddenly when Engessa rose to his feet and stood with his arms folded across his chest. He did not even bother to scowl at the unruly councillors.

‘That’s better,’ Oscagne said. ‘I’m glad that the legendary courtesy of the Styric people has finally asserted itself. If I may, I’ll briefly introduce the members of our party, and then we’ll place an urgent matter before you for your consideration.’ He briefly introduced Patriarch Emban. An angry mutter swept through the chamber.

‘That’s directed at the Church, your Grace,’ Stragen told him, ‘not at you personally.’

When Oscagne introduced Ehlana, one council member on the top tier whispered a remark to those seated near him which elicited a decidedly vulgar laugh. Mirtai came to her feet like an uncoiling spring, her hands darting to her sheathed daggers.

Engessa said something sharply to her in the Tamul tongue.

She shook her head. Her eyes were blazing and her jaw was set. She drew a dagger. Mirtai may not have understood Styric, but she did understand the implications of that laugh.

Sparhawk rose to his feet. ‘It’s my place to respond, Mirtai,’ he reminded her.

‘You will not defer to me?’

‘Not this time, no. I’m sorry, but it’s a sort of formal occasion, so we should observe the niceties.’ He turned to look up at the insolent Styric in the top row. ‘Would you care to repeat what you just said a little louder, neighbour?’ he asked in Styric. ‘If it’s so funny, maybe you should share it with us.’

‘Well, what do you know,’ the fellow sneered, ‘a talking dog.’

Sephrenia rose to her feet. ‘I call upon the Thousand to observe the traditional moment of silence,’ she declared in Styric.

‘Who died?’ the loud-mouth demanded.

‘You did, Camriel,’ she told him sweetly, ‘so our grief will not be excessive. This is Prince Sparhawk, the man who destroyed the Elder God Azash, and you’ve just insulted his wife. Did you want the customary burial – assuming that we can find enough of you to commit to the earth when he’s done with you?’

Camriel’s jaw had dropped, and his face had gone dead white. The rest of the Council also visibly shrank back.

‘His name still seems to carry some weight,’ Ulath noted to Tynian.

‘Evidently. Our insolent friend up there seems to be having long, gloomy thoughts about mortality.’

‘Councillor Camriel,’ Sparhawk said quite formally, ‘let us not interrupt the deliberations of the Thousand with a purely personal matter. I’ll look you up after the meeting, and we can make the necessary arrangements.’

‘What did he say?’ Ehlana whispered to Stragen.

‘The usual, your Majesty. I expect that Councillor Camriel’s going to remember a pressing engagement on the other side of the world at any moment now.’

‘Will the Council permit this barbarian to threaten me?’ Camriel quavered.

A silvery-haired Styric on the far side of the room laughed derisively. ‘You personally insulted a state visitor, Camriel,’ he declared. ‘The Thousand has no obligation to defend you under those circumstances. Your God has been very lax in your instruction. You’re a boorish, loud-mouthed imbecile. We’ll be well rid of you.’

‘How dare you speak to me so, Michan?’

‘You seem dazzled by the fact that one of the Gods is slightly fond of you, Camriel,’ Michan drawled, ‘and you overlook the fact that we all share that peculiar eminence here. My God loves me at least as much as your God loves you.’ Michan paused. ‘Probably more, actually. I’d guess that your God’s having second thoughts about you at the moment. You must be a terrible embarrassment to him. But you’re wasting valuable time. As soon as this meeting adjourns, I expect that Prince Sparhawk will come looking for you – with a knife. You do have a knife some place nearby, don’t you, your Highness?’

Sparhawk grinned and opened his robe slightly to reveal his sword-hilt.

‘Splendid, old fellow,’ Michan said. ‘I’d have been glad to lend you mine, but a man always works better with his own equipment. Haven’t you left yet, Camriel? If you plan to live long enough to see the sun go down, you’d best get cracking.’

Councillor Camriel fled.

‘What happened?’ Ehlana demanded impatiently.

‘If we choose to look at it in a certain light, we could consider the Councillor’s flight to be a form of apology,’ Stragen told her.

‘We do not accept apologies,’ Mirtai said implacably. ‘May I chase him down and kill him, Ehlana?’

‘Why don’t we just let him run for a while, Mirtai?’ the queen decided.

‘How long?’

‘How long would you say he’s likely to run, Milord?’ Ehlana asked Stragen.

‘The rest of his life probably, my Queen.’

‘That sounds about right to me.’

The response of the Thousand to Zalasta’s description of the current situation was fairly predictable, and the fact that all of the speeches showed evidence of much polishing hinted strongly that there had been few surprises in his presentation. The Thousand seemed to be divided into three factions. Predictably, there were a fair number of councillors who took the position that the Styrics could defend themselves and that they had no real reason to become involved. Styrics had strong suspicions where Elene promises were concerned, since Elene rulers tended to forget promises made to Styrics after a crisis had passed.

A second faction was more moderate. They pointed out the fact that the crisis here concerned the Tamuls rather than the Elenes, and that the presence of a small band of Church Knights from Eosia was really irrelevant. As the silvery-haired Michan pointed out, ‘The Tamuls may not be our friends in every sense of the word, but at least they’re not our enemies. Let’s not overlook the fact that their Atans keep the Astels, the Edomish and the Dacites from our doorstep.’ Michan was highly respected, and his opinion carried great weight in the council.

There was a third faction as well, a vocal minority so rabidly anti-Elene that they even went so far as to suggest that the interests of Styricum might be better served by an alliance with the perpetrators of the outrages. Their speeches were not really intended to be taken seriously. The speakers had merely seized this opportunity to list long catalogues of grievances and to unleash diatribes of hatred and vituperation.

‘This is starting to get tiresome.’ Stragen finally said to Sparhawk, rising to his feet.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do? Why, I’m going to respond, old boy.’ He stepped to the centre of the floor and stood resolutely in the face of their shouts and curses. The noise gradually subsided, more because those causing it had run out of things to say than because anyone was really curious about what this elegant blond Elene had to say. ‘I’m delighted to discover that all men are equally contemptible.’ Stragen told them, his rich voice carrying to every corner of the hall. ‘I had despaired of ever finding a flaw in the Styric character, but I find that you’re like all other men when you’re gathered together into a mob. The outspoken and unconcealed bigotry you have revealed here this afternoon has lifted my despair and filled my heart with joy. I swoon with delight to find this cesspool of festering nastiness lurking in the Styric soul, since it proves once and for all that men are all the same, regardless of race.’

There were renewed shouts of protest. The protests were laced with curses this time.

Once again Stragen waited. ‘I’m disappointed in you, my dear brothers,’ he told them finally. ‘An Elene child of seven could curse more inventively. Is this really the best the combined wisdom of Styricum can come up with? Is “Elene bastard” really all you know how to say? It doesn’t even particularly insult me, because in my case it happens to be true.’ He looked around, his expression urbane and just slightly superior. ‘I’m also a thief and a murderer, and I have a large number of unsavoury habits. I’ve committed crimes for which there aren’t even names, and you think your pallid, petty denunciations could distress me in any way? Does anyone have a meaningful accusation before I examine your failings?’

‘You’ve enslaved us!’ someone bellowed.

‘Not me, old boy,’ Stragen drawled. ‘You couldn’t give me a slave. You have to feed them, you know – even when they’re not working. Now then, let’s step right along here. We’ve established the fact that I’m a thief and a murderer and a bastard, but what are you? Would the word “snivellers” startle you? You Styrics whine a great deal. You’ve carefully stored up an inventory of the abuses you’ve suffered in the past several thousand years and you take a perverted pleasure in sitting in dark, smelly corners regurgitating them all, chewing them over and over like mouthfuls of stale vomit. You try to blame Elenes for all your troubles. Does it surprise you to discover that I feel no guilt about the plight of the Styrics? I have more than enough guilt for things I have done without beating my breast about things that happened a thousand years before I was born. Frankly, my friends, all these martyred expressions bore me. Don’t you ever get tired of feeling sorry for yourselves? I’m now going to offend you even more by getting right to the point. If you want to snivel, do it in your own time. We’re offering you the opportunity to join with us in facing a common enemy. It’s just a courtesy, you understand, because we don’t really need you. Keep that firmly in view. We don’t need you. Actually, you’ll encumber us. I’ve heard a few intellectual cripples here suggest an alliance with our enemy. What makes you think he’d want you as allies? The Elene peasantry would probably be overjoyed if you tried, though, because that would give them an excuse to slaughter Styrics from here to the straits of Thalesia. Joining with us won’t ensure a lessening of Elene prejudice, but joining with our enemies will almost guarantee that ten years from now there won’t be a live Styric in any Elene kingdom in the world.’

He scratched thoughtfully at his chin and looked around. ‘I guess that more or less covers everything,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you talk it over amongst yourselves? My friends and I will be leaving for Matherion tomorrow. You might want to let us know what you’ve decided before we go. That’s entirely up to you, of course. Words couldn’t begin to express our indifference to the decisions of such an insignificant people.’ He turned and offered his arm to Ehlana. ‘Shall we leave, your Majesty?’ he suggested.

‘What did you say to them, Stragen?’

‘I insulted them,’ he shrugged, ‘on as many levels as I possibly could. Then I threatened them with racial extinction and then invited them to sign on as allies.’

‘All in one speech?’

‘He was brilliant, your Majesty,’ Oscagne said enthusiastically. ‘He said some things to the Styrics that have needed saying for a long, long time.’

‘I have certain advantages, your Excellency,’ Stragen smiled. ‘My character’s so questionable that nobody expects me to be polite.’

‘Actually, you’re exquisitely courteous,’ Bevier disagreed.

‘I know, Sir Bevier, but people don’t expect it of me, so they can’t bring themselves to believe it.’

Both Sephrenia and Zalasta had icy, offended expressions on their faces that evening.

‘I wasn’t trying to be personally insulting,’ Stragen assured them. ‘I’ve heard any number of enlightened people say exactly the same thing. We sympathise with Styrics, but we find these interminable seizures of self-pity tedious.’

‘You said many things that simply aren’t true, you know,’ Sephrenia accused him.

‘Of course I did. It was a political speech, little mother. Nobody expects a politician to tell the truth.’

‘You were really gambling, Milord Stragen,’ Zalasta said critically. ‘I nearly swallowed my tongue when you told them that the Elenes and the Tamuls were offering an alliance simply out of courtesy. When you told them that you didn’t really need them, they might very well have decided to sit the whole affair out.’

‘Not when he was holding all the rest of Styricum hostage, learned one,’ Oscagne disagreed. ‘It was a brilliant political speech. That not-so-subtle hint of the possibility of a new wave of Elene atrocities didn’t really leave the Thousand any choice in the matter. What was the general reaction?’

‘About what you’d expect, your Excellency,’ Zalasta replied. ‘Milord Stragen cut the ground out from under the Styric tradition of self-pity. It’s very hard to play the martyr when you’ve just been told that it makes you look like a silly ass. There’s a fit of towering resentment brewing among the Thousand. We Styrics are terribly fond of feeling sorry for ourselves, and that’s been ruined now. No one ever really considered joining with the enemy – even if we knew who he was – but Stragen effectively bludgeoned us into going even further. Neutrality’s out of the question now, since the Elene peasants would come to view neutrality as very nearly the same thing as actually joining with our unknown opponent. The Thousand will assist you, your Excellency. They’ll do all they can do – if only to protect our brothers and sisters in Eosia.’

‘You’ve put in a full day’s work, Stragen,’ Kalten said admiringly. ‘We could have been here for a month trying to persuade the Styrics that it was in their best interests to join us.’

‘My day isn’t finished yet,’ Stragen told him, ‘and the next group I have to try to persuade is much more hard-headed.’

‘Might I be of some assistance?’ Zalasta offered.

‘I really rather doubt it, learned one. As soon as it gets dark, Talen and I have to pay a visit to the thieves of Sarsos.’

‘There are no thieves in Sarsos, Stragen!’

Stragen and Talen looked at each other, and then they burst out with howls of cynical laughter.

‘I just don’t trust him, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana said later that night when they were in bed. ‘There’s something about him that just doesn’t ring true.’

‘I think it’s his accent, love. I felt the same way until I realised that while his Elene is perfect, his accent puts emphasis on the wrong words. Styric and Elene flow differently. Don’t worry, though, Sephrenia would know if Zalasta weren’t to be trusted. She’s known him for a long, long time.’

‘I still don’t like him,’ she insisted. ‘He’s so oily he gleams when the light hits him just right.’ She raised one hand. ‘And don’t try to shrug it off as prejudice. I’m looking at Zalasta as a human being, not as a Styric. I just don’t trust him.’

‘That should pass after we get to know him better.’

There was a knock at the door. ‘Are you busy?’ Mirtai called. ‘What would we be doing at this hour?’ Ehlana called back impishly.

‘Do you really want me to tell you, Ehlana? Talen’s here. He has something you might want to know.’

‘Send him in,’ Sparhawk told her.

The door opened, and Talen came into the circle of light of their single candle. ‘It’s just like old times, Sparhawk.’

‘How so?’

‘Stragen and I were coming back from our meeting with the thieves, and we saw Krager in the street. Can you believe that? It was good to see him again. I was actually starting to miss him.’